Council OKs affordable housing fee hike

5-4 vote once again split along party lines

SAN.DIEGO  A divided San Diego City Council on Thursday voted 5-4 to increase fees on commercial developers for more affordable housing units.

The vote reaffirmed an identical vote earlier this month. The issue was back before the council for approval of a phased-in rate structure.

Voting along party lines, the council authorized increasing the so-called “linkage fee,” setting it at 1.5 percent of 2013 construction costs.

An office building developer currently must pay $1.06 per square foot, the same amount as in 1996. By July 1, 2016, that same developer would pay $5.32 per square foot. Projects completed by July 1, 2014, aren’t subject to the higher rates.

City Councilmen Kevin Faulconer and David Alvarez, the two mayoral candidates, again split on the issue.

Faulconer contends it will be a job-killer and said it will have the opposite of its intended effect.

“It’s absolutely the wrong thing the city of San Diego should be doing,” Faulconer said.

Alvarez argued the increase restores the fee to where it was before the council slashed it in 1999 during an economic downturn. The fee now generates about $2.2 million a year.

“This restoration puts us back on the path that was set in the 1990s, and quite frankly we have a lot of catching up to do,” he said.

San Diego has 45,000 families on its affordable housing waiting list. The increase is expected to generate about 100 new units per year, according to a city analysis.

Thursday’s meeting was the first for Faulconer and Alvarez since voters chose them as the top two candidates to replace former mayor Bob Filner. Because neither got more than 50 percent, a runoff likely in February decides who becomes the next mayor.

There was little interaction between them during the nearly daylong council meeting, and neither made any reference to the mayor’s race.